


Kick the Can

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [26]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Constructed Reality, M/M, Plant Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He shouldn't be here. He's here anyway. (S9-ish, no direct spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kick the Can

**Author's Note:**

> capalxii prompted: 12 hasn't quite forgiven himself for ignoring "your emotions are your humanity" as soon as it was tactically advantageous for Danny to fully convert. Danny hasn't either but he's dead & shouldn't be here so.

The Doctor has been haunted by the ghost of Danny Pink for the last two days. He’d been performing routine maintenance on the TARDIS, clearing the sludge out of the point in the filtration system where sludge tended to collect. There’d been a noise, and he’d looked over his shoulder, and there’d been a Danny Pink, and the Doctor had knocked his head standing up directly into the open access panel cover. By the time he’d reassembled his wits, Danny was gone.

A trick of the light, then. Something misfiring in his brain. A reasonable explanation. Less reasonable, though, when he kept catching flashes out of the corner of his eye, blurs just missed gone around bends in the corridor. Entirely unreasonable when he makes a turn and comes face-to-face with a slightly see-through, slightly vague, but undeniably present Danny.

So the TARDIS has a ghost on board, now. He’s thankful Clara isn’t here. He hates that, but there it is: he’s glad, so incredibly glad, that she isn’t here to see the ghost of Danny Pink. It would be painful, it would be complicated, an impossible-to-navigate mess. There’d be crying, or brittle arguments, wounds re-opened, resentment dusted off.

Hard to get work done, a distraction like that. And if he can manage to isolate whatever signal or trans-dimensional hiccup is causing this, if he can manage to bring Danny back, it won’t be for Clara.

 

* * *

Danny Pink has been haunted by the ghost of the Doctor for the past three days. He’d been tending his garden, pulling weeds from in between the paving stones of the front walkway. A wind had picked up, there’d been a flash of something angular and black by the hydrangeas. He’d chalked it up to something that just happens here. Like the lightning held freeze-frame in the sky to the west, or the deja-vu, or the occasional appearance/disappearance/reappearance of common household items.

And then he’d looked up, kneeling in the dirt holding a fistful of dandelions, and seen the silhouette against the red sunset/sunrise, and he knew. Even in death, he couldn’t escape the Doctor. It figures. Things had been going well, for a given value of ‘well’, and the Doctor always did seem to get a perverse sort of pleasure out of mucking up Danny’s life.

The city is on fire; the city has always been on fire. But the city is miles away, and they are safe here on the outskirts. He’s found, if not happiness exactly, a kind of peace. There’s an existence to be had here same as anywhere else. He’s made connections. He’s settled in.

There’s Jim and Bridget next door, with their cocker spaniels and their board game nights and their easy, undemanding friendship. The crowd at the local, ex-military mostly, who had propped him up the first (and second, and third) time he’d broken down. Geraldine down the way who speaks in tongues but who presented him with a fresh-baked pecan pie and a smile when he first moved in. Good people, and no bills to pay, and dogs to pet, and a garden. A man could have a worse death, all things considered.

And now he’s being annoyed, again, by this asshole. A startled-looking Doctor in his garden, a broadly pantomiming Doctor in his kitchen, once a completely-unreadable Doctor in the shower with him. The same ancient, scrawny git he’s come to begrudgingly accept as not a total piece of shit. Except not quite the same: he’s sloppier than Danny remembers, wild-haired and sad-eyed.

Something must have happened. Whatever. Danny might have moved on (mostly) but he’s in no mood to give a damn. He puts up some signs: LEAVE ME ALONE, PLEASE STOP BOTHERING ME, THIS IS CREEPY. The Doctor at one point peeling the piece of paper off the wall that says IT’S MY AFTERLIFE AND YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO INTRUDE, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, and kind of crumpling in on himself before blinking out of existence.

Danny could feel bad, but he doesn’t.

 

* * *

The Doctor had hoped the sync would end up with Danny on the TARDIS. This doesn’t happen. Instead, he finds himself in front of a small cottage. The squeak of the wrought-iron gate swinging open, the birds chirping, shutters painted light blue. Gardenias. The smell of dirt and fresh-cut grass, and distantly the smell of smoke.

He braces himself as well as he can for something he doesn’t know what it is, and knocks on the door.

“Hel-oh, it’s you.” Danny Pink, staring at him with a mix of exasperation and resignation. “You’re dead too, then.”

“No. Not yet. Well, it’s complicated. But no, not dead. Can I come in?” He’s already inside. This place is as small on the inside as it is on the outside, which is to say: small. He stands, hands shoved in his pockets, in the middle of the tiny living-room. He tries not to feel unwelcome or unnecessary. He is on a mission. And he always makes himself at home, even if the glare Danny is giving him makes him check if he’s left muddy bootprints behind him (he has, but it’s a metaphorical feeling, the literal fact is not so important.)

But Danny is sighing, and his expression is softening, and he’s putting a kettle on the boil. “I suppose you’re going to tell me all about it.”

The Doctor does not tell Danny all about it. There’s a lot he’s not saying, an incredibly impressive wealth of information he is currently not imparting.

“I knew a botanist once,” he says, in lieu of anything relevant. “She seemed to enjoy plants, and she was reasonably intelligent for a human, so it’s safe to assume they give you some satisfaction as well, which is. Nice.”

There’s a flash card in his pocket that says I’M SORRY TO IMPLY YOUR SPECIES IS MENTALLY INFERIOR. Among others. Nothing specifically for whatever this social situation is.

Danny slams two mugs down on the kitchen counter, tea slopping over the rims. “Emotions are still kind of a theoretical prospect for you, huh.”

“I’ve been trying-” He cuts himself off, because it comes out as a whisper, this tiny pathetic thing.

The look on Danny’s face might be described as ‘pity’. And he realizes now what he looks like. The same outfit for the past week, few weeks. The deflective mania Clara has consistently reminded him to tone down. The mud on his boots and his unconvincing smile. “Do you want.” He clears his throat, tries again. “Do you want to come back? To the land of the living.”

“This is a land. Maybe not of the living, but the church is showing _The Incredibles_ tomorrow night, I’ve been looking forward to that. Football match every Tuesday at noon in the park. And I told Geraldine I’d trade her some yardwork for a rhubarb pie.”

“Clara-”

“Has moved on, hopefully.” Danny narrows his eyes. “And you _are_ treating her with the respect and care she deserves, or I will bust out of this place myself just to smack you. Not because she needs me to defend her, but because you’re an asshole and you’ve earned it.”

“Fair enough.” The Doctor smiles, aware it’s a little half-hearted and crooked. Thinks about the cards - no, not the cards, what the cards mean. How to be kind, how to back down, how to acknowledge the validity of someone else’s experience.

Danny steps forward, shoulders squared and face locked into something tense that might well be anger. The Doctor flinches, expecting a punch. It doesn’t come. Instead, Danny leans in, posture relaxing slightly, and - sniffs him.

“You smell like her perfume,” he says quietly. “Funny how I remember that, after all this time.”

“Smell can be a powerful trigger for memories,” the Doctor replies, equally quietly.

Danny is now closer. Danny is now very close. Danny is now kissing him, firmly and matter-of-fact-ly, and the Doctor automatically melts, arms wrapping loosely around Danny’s waist. This is nice. He’s never really considered doing the mouth-tongue-thing with anyone other than Clara. Speaking of.

He pulls back, pointedly ignoring Danny’s smug grin. “Was that for Clara?”

“That was for you. To confuse you, give you something to think about when you’re off gallivanting through the universe. Maybe I wanted to know what the fuss was about. Who knows. You’re not the only one capable of being mysterious.”

“So you want to stay here. To die, in this simulation.” Testing out the heft of it, making sure - as best as he can - that this is an informed decision. Reminding himself that it’s not his decision to make.

“We all die. And if a simulation feels real, then what’s the difference?”

“S'pose so.”

There’s a pause. Danny is looking at him expectantly. More mouth-things? No, he’s being guided out, through the door, down the walkway, other side of the squeaky gate.

“Have a nice life,” Danny says, and waves. It’s not entirely false sentiment.

“Um,” the Doctor says. “Have a nice death?” He shrugs, presses a button on his wristwatch, and vanishes.


End file.
